Actors on stage during a performance of A Midsummer Night 's Dream

Shakespeare and Fanfiction

Despite an enduring slice of audience that treats his work as precious and mythic, most Shakespeare fans have rarely met an adaptive concept they didn’t like.
The rugged coast of the Isles of Scilly, England, U.K.

Life in the Islands of the Dead

Though part of the mainland county of Cornwall, the Scilly Islands offer visitors an encounter with history and the environment like no other.
Taj Mahal, 2007

The Taj Mahal Today

In parallel with the recent shift in political attitudes toward Islamic heritage, India’s most famous monument may need to find a new place in history.
Beryl Markham

Beryl Markham, Warrior of the Skies

The first person to fly solo, non-stop from Europe to North America, Markham lived life by her own rules.
Hand drawn illustration of african woman with pink hair

Going “Black to the Future”

How has Afrofuturism supported the imagining of other worlds in the face of the anthropogenic climate crisis?
An illustration showing fencing positions, 1610

The Fencing Moral Panic of Elizabethan London

In Elizabethan England, it seemed like everyone was carrying a sharpened object with the intent to inflict damage.
Sheet music cover dated 1852

Christy’s Minstrels Go to Great Britain

Minstrel shows were an American invention, but they also found success in the United Kingdom, where audiences were negotiating their relationships with empire.
Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Arctic circle, Norway

Svalbard: Seeds of Hope

The Arctic archipelago is a bellwether for global climate change, but it also offers a safety net in a planetary disaster scenario.
Eileen Gray, 1914

Eileen Gray: Architect In Her Own Right

Without formal training as an architect, Gray created magnificent designs that sensitively blended traditional craft with a modern aesthetic.
Mbarak Mombée

Mbarak Mombée: An African Explorer Robbed of His Name

Kidnapped and sold into slavery, Mbarak Mombée was critical to the success of the most celebrated nineteenth-century European expeditions in Africa.